Highly Overrated But Still Good

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The decade of disco, the 70s was ruled by the BeeGees especially after the release of Saturday Night Fever. So this film starring them with Peter Frampton should have been a slam dunk with the box office and the critics. It was neither and the critics really pounced on it.Post 1965 Beatles music formed the score of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band and the film is essentially fantasy opera. Frampton is in the title role and the BeeGees were the other band members.No use to describing a plot, knitting the whole film together and giving it some structure is the voice of George Burns who utters the only speaking words in the film. I guess no one asked sugar throat Burns to sing.A bunch of guest artists are here and if you are into that decade's music as well as Lennon-McCartney you will enjoy the film no matter what the critics say. They weren't kind, but I don't think it was that bad.The kaleidoscopic colors of the decade's fashions really kind of overwhelm the viewer. That and the fact that Peter Frampton was the prettiest one in the film. Some of the scenes come close to soft core porn.But it's the music you want with a film like Sergeant Pepper so sit back and enjoy.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a movie that embodies everything hideous, gaudy, inane, silly, bizarre and banal about the latter half of the 1970's. Where else can you see a decrepit octogenarian (George Burns) sing a really bad cover of "Fixing a Hole" with his frog voice and flat intonation? I could describe the sound of his voice as dirty water gurgling down a rusty drainpipe, but that may not be vivid enough. Where else can you see a revivalist band of brothers dressed in effeminate costumes posing as colorfully dressed sailors? Where else can we get a plot, or numerous subplots for that matter, all in one sophomoric land waste of celluloid? Well folks, it happened in this cringe inducing picture. Indeed. But I must not dismiss the edification of my assessment just yet. Something is amiss when we normally castigate movies like this: the well intended, the offbeat, the misguided and the noble attempts to combine that which is lovable and popular into our own creative soup. A rehash of ideas you may call it. or even lofty aspirations for those who thought they knew better.Peter Frampton had recently earned staggering success from a record selling album while his costars, The BeeGees, shared equal success with their Saturday Night Fever album. The Beatles were still very popular even they they had been disbanded for nearly a decade. So the Hollywood mavens and the Record companies put their Acid/Cocaine induced heads together and created this travesty. Well, I guess you had to be there to understand and appreciate it.People who were born after 1978, specifically Generation Y and millenials wouldn't understand the creation of a movie like this like I would. Having been born in 1968 and having seen a massive convergence of styles, pop culture and the departure from old fashioned norms was still very new. Today, it's not only hip to depart from tradition, it's a ubiquitous endemic. And so my friends, SPLHCL ferments in the annals of cinema history as an enormous blunder and embarrassment to those who were involved. Strangely enough, The Beatles weren't, in any way, involved with this production.

Yeah. This is a train-wreck of a movie. But, even the Beatles worst madcap movie, Magical Mystery Tour, is no gem. Their movies had a hand-held, home movie style. What's sad about this one is they seemed to pile on a lot of talent and throw dazzle at it. I doubt anyone can justify the dripping cheeseburger as a centrepiece in the main square? That said, 38yrs later, this does have it's good moments. Singing by the BeeGees, Peter Frampton, Aerosmith, EWF and Billy Preston I enjoyed. I don't usually like to hear other artist do The Beatles songs. Last, where will you ever see Carol Channing singing with Tina Turner? Crappy movie? Yes. Worth a look? Yes, at fast-foreword.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) 1/2 (out of 4)Thankfully the entire "let's turn a great album into a horrid movie" genre didn't make it past this abomination, which is just one bad idea after another. The Bee Gees play the title characters of the legendary Beatles album and for some reason they travel from one vignette to another. I really wish I could explain the "story" a little better but there's really not one or at least not one that you can figure out without the help of a lot of drugs. It's funny to think how popular pop was when the album was made and by the time the film had came out many rock stars had jumped to cocaine and heroin and I think the result of this film proves that those drugs just don't work. I'm really not sure what George Martin was thinking when he threw this together. I'm guessing it had to do something with money because why on Earth would you have The Bee Gees singing the songs of The Beatles? It's nothing against the group as they were great at what they did but throwing them into this film was just a huge mistake as the songs range from suicide worthy to embarrassing. Another horrible thing about the film is its actual look. The entire thing just looks so over-the-top, childish and silly that you can't help but wonder what the set decorator and director were thinking. Things aren't much better in regards to the supporting comic bits where the likes of George Burns and Steve Martin sing. Really? Whose idea was it for them to sing? Of all the guest performances there are only a few who actually shine. One is Alice Cooper doing a nice version of "Because" and then there's Aerosmith doing "Come Together," which is the only version, which is actually better than that of the original. However, the keep with the badness of the entire film, someone had the bright idea of cutting Aerosmith's song off in middle. SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND is without question one of the worst films ever made. The lowest spot? Probably the horrendous version of "Here Comes the Sun" by Sandy Farina.